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How to Sew a Flat Flower Embellishment

Well I’m not a bumblebee today with my bright skirt, but I do have a tutorial for some of the embellishments on the shirt I wore yesterday. I like to call it a flat flower because it’s flat. And I’m a fan of flat flowers. There are two on my shirt one on each side in the lighter gray.

First start with a long tube of fabric. The wider your tube, the quicker and easier your flower is. Make sure it’s pretty long too.

Take one end and decide where you want the center of the flower to be on whatever you’re embellishing.

Tack it down with some stitching. (I just went forwards and then backwards.) Fold the fabric over at the tack. You’re going to start shaping the fabric and folding it in a circle. So decide where you want your next fold to be and tack it. Fold the fabric on the tack.

Keep going so that the fabric folds around in a circle.

Keep doing this to the make the flower get bigger. Make sure that the fabric slightly overlaps the inside petals. My tacks are more angled on the fabric because the fabric folds at a different angle as the flower gets bigger.

When you get close to the end leave a slight tail. Notice I still have a tack where my tail will be folded.

Fold the end over itself, and fold on the tack.

Then I just topstitched it down. If you don’t want topstitching and your fabric tube is wide enough, you could tuck your end under a previous petal and stitch it down.

Lastly, iron your flower flat. I like to iron it to make sure my folds are all folding in the right places to hide my tacks.

Then you’re done! It might be a little tedious, but I feel like most fabric flowers are a little bit tedious. And it’s a lot less tedious if you have a thicker tube. Here’s another example of a flat flower I did on a skirt. The tube was much thicker so I was able to hide me end under a petal.

I also added some lace next to my flower and . . .

a small flat flower, lace, and a gathered flower to the other side.

Now I have a nice little flower garden on my shirt!

Now go make a flower on something you own! Flowers can always brighten a day!

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Comments

Absolutely love this tutorial! I'm headed toward my sewing machine now 🙂 Also, I loved reading about your faith. Last weekend, we had a girl's night with the youth group from church and a lady spoke on modesty – very enlightening.

I'm dolling up a onesie for my sister's new baby, so I'm totally using this! I needed a flower that wouldn't get ripped off and possibly choked on or petals that were too flappy so this is perfect! Thanks!